You can't eat that

My husband and I co-own a children’s performing arts academy with his brother and our sister-in-law. We just completed production week for our two spring musicals. These weeks are very intense for us and amount to working about 140 hours in nine days. This time it was around 160 hours. In a different post I will go into the details of how this affects my body. But for now I will just say, it is the reason for my lack of posts over the past two weeks.

In my last post I spoke about my diabetes diagnosis and in this one I will begin to talk about my treatment and my life with the disease.

As I mentioned in my last post, the ladies at The Endocrine Group spoke to me about ‘carb counting’. One problem for those who have diabetes is the misunderstanding that “as long as it is sugar free, I can eat it.” The problem is that not everything that is “sugar free” is free of carbohydrates. It isn’t just the simple sugars that cause the blood sugar to spike, but also the complex carbohydrates.

A brief lesson on the difference between the two:

Simple carbohydrates are easily, and quickly, digested. Simple carbohydrates very often contain refined sugars and do not contain as many essential vitamins and minerals. Fruits, juice, sugary candy, yogurt, plain sugar, and milk are examples of simple carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates cause blood glucose levels to spike soon after consumption.

Complex carbohydrates take longer to break down, making the digestion process slower. They generally contain fiber, vitamins and minerals. Complex carbohydrates include vegetables, cereals, breads, legumes, and pasta. Complex carbohydrates take longer to absorb into the bloodstream, therefore the glucose levels do not spike immediately after consumption.

So, let’s take a look at a bag of Hershey’s Sugar Free Chocolates. One serving of the miniature sugar free bars contains 24 carbohydrates. This is the same as consuming eight ounces of orange juice. Now, someone who is diabetic would obviously take insulin for the orange juice, or perhaps not even drink it. However, they might not know to take insulin for something labeled ‘sugar free’, even though it has the same amount of carbohydrates as the orange juice. Do you see how this could be misleading? More than misleading, it really confuses the general public and solidifies their belief that diabetics shouldn’t eat sugar.

The treatment for Type 1 Diabetes has really changed over the years, but not a lot of people realize it. I find this frustrating and I get soooo tired of being asked, “Can you eat that?” in a way that sounds like I am poisoning myself. I know those asking the question really have my best interest in mind and genuinely do not want me to eat something that could harm me. However, I just want to scream, “I’VE BEEN LIVING WITH THIS DISEASE FOR OVER 10 YEARS. DON’T YOU THINK I KNOW HOW TO TAKE CARE OF MYSELF?!?!?!?” I always refrain and instead try to take a moment to educate the nagging concerned individual about diabetes and carb counting. If you have ever asked me this, please don’t feel bad. No hard feelings.

A couple of nights ago I went with my parents to Neuro Night. Neuro Night is hosted by the Oklahoma Center for Neuroscience. It is a monthly series featuring professionals from the community. Each month they focus on a different topic and this month the topic was, “The Brain and Diabetes.” One of the speakers told a story of a 15 year old boy with Type 1 Diabetes. He said the boy nearly starved at boy scout camp, because every time he would try and eat his leader would say, “Son, you can’t eat that. You are diabetic.” This is another example of how the treatment for the disease has changed, without the rest of the world realizing it.

Carb counting is a pretty accurate term. You do exactly what it says: you count carbs. The ratio varies from person to person. For every 15 grams of carbohydrates, I take one unit of insulin. This is really easy to do when eating packaged food. All you do is look at the label and do the math. It becomes a little more complicated when eating out or cooking at home. I have learned to guess pretty accurately on most foods. You learn over time how many carbs are in mashed potatoes, a piece of bread, strawberries, etc.

I have an insulin pump, so I can actually take as little as a tenth of a unit of insulin. This allows me to be very precise in the amount of insulin I take. There is a lot to say about my pump, so I will leave it for another post.